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Movie Plot – The Breakfast Club (available on Netflix): five high school students are in detention on a Saturday. They are all from a different stereotypical friend group, but they have a lot more in common than they thought.

Director: John Hughes
Writer: John Hughes
Cast: Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, John Kapelos, Anthony Michael Hall, Paul Gleason, Ally Sheedy

My first time watching The Breakfast Club on Netflix

On a lazy evening, I was looking for a film to watch, and I found out that the Breakfast Club was on Netflix. And, I think to myself, “great, didn’t know it was on Netflix.” Also, I always wanted to see this film as it’s one of the cult films. Furthermore, I’ve recently seen Pitch Perfect, where they mention The Breakfast Club.

At first, nothing much happens. But, the further the movie goes, the more interesting it becomes. So you have five students, who all belong to a different stereotypical student group: The athlete, the brain, the criminal, the princess, the basket case.

Besides all their differences, the more the film progresses, the more they find out that they’re all similar in a way.

I would suggest you to stop reading if you want to watch the film for the first time. From now, there will be spoilers ahead. You are warned!

The five characters

As mentioned before, the five students all have different backgrounds and do not know each other. They all represent one of the social groups we can find in many schools. It may be cliché, but the film smartly handles this.

The Athlete: Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez) is a professional wrestler. He’s in detention because he taped a student’s butt.

The Brain/ The Nerd: Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) is the smart kid of the bunch. He is a member of the mathematics club, the physics club, and the chemistry club. In other words, he’s the kid every parent dreams of, who comes home with high scores. He brought a light gun to school that accidentally went off in his locker and caused minor damage.

The Criminal: John Bender (Judd Nelson) is the troublemaker who always is causing mischief in school. Bender sounded the fire alarm and ended up in detention. It is said that he is there more often.

The Princess: Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald) is the rich, popular, and spoiled child who believes she is better than the rest. She skipped school to go shopping but got caught.

The Basket Case: Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) is the “Psychologically Insane”: an outsider and she self-describes her as a “compulsive liar.” She is in detention because she had nothing else to do.

In addition, there is more to their background: Brian Johnson gets nervous when he gets less than a 10 for a test. John Bender is abused by his father. Claire Standish deals mainly with external matters. Allison Reynolds, finally, is the girl who is ignored by her parents and also keeps her distance from everyone and everything at school.

The assignment: who do you think you are?

The teacher who is supervising during this detention gives the student an assignment. They all have to write an essay about “who do you think you are?” Now, the best part is that he doesn’t know how much unintentional influence he has over these kids.

The students aren’t focused on completing that assignment. On the other hand, every scene in this film slowly builds up to that final answer. The breakfast club is a journey to self-discovery and opening yourself up towards strangers.

Now, most of the time, the teacher is in his office. Every time he hears some mischief, he comes to the detention room to see what’s going on. These are the moments where all the students are starting to work together. Hence, they begin to loosen up more towards each other. It’s important to know that the teacher is a crucial part of the film as he made the kids open up more. Was it is his intention? No, but it worked out brilliantly.

Finding common ground

The conversations become deeper and more confrontational, but over time it becomes clear that they have more similarities than differences, and the initial aversion develops into mutual respect and even friendship. Above all, they discover that they’re all struggling with roughly the same problems in their path to adulthood.

All five suffer from having to meet certain expectations of their parents. Those expectations are in line with their stereotypical character. For example, the brains should always have good grades, according to his parents. Even though a friendship has developed, they still wonder if it will last after the weekend as they all are from different friend groups.

The Breakfast Club is a must-see for every high-school student. I find it to be very educational, while everyone can reflect those feelings upon their-selves. Most of us put ourselves in boxes according to people’s expectations. Although, in this film, the students break out of their box by having these discussions. Even I could find myself in this film, especially when I was a teenager.

Having fun like teenagers

Dance, smoke weed, and sneak around the school.

One of the rules of detention is that they can’t leave their seats. Obviously, they don’t respect the rules as they always sneak around.

All this behavior makes them more comfortable around others. It makes them loosen up more, and is also why they open up more to each other about their struggles. I thought it was brilliant to have these elements included in the film.

The dance scene is one of my favorite parts of the film. And that’s only because they’re having fun while doing it together despite all their differences.

And let’s not forget about the iconic song from Simple Minds, Don’t you Forget About Me. What a great song that will last forever.

Conclusion

I’m glad I finally got to watch The Breakfast Club on Netflix. This film should be played in all schools as it’s interesting and educational. This film is one of the best definitions of being a teenager.